x x where the MOSQUE is x xAs you know, Lebaran is exactly today in the US, but I strangely feel none of its vibes at all. Well, it comes to my realization that I'm currently living in a land where Moslem isn't considered a major population, unlike my home country.
two girls in the search of worship houses
being lost, disoriented, ached-feet,
onlywith the help of google maps on their hands
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ATTENTION!
This post is writings-heavy. If you can't stand reading a great deal of text, you can simply skip this post and wait till I post a new one.
Be careful not to get disoriented with places' names and buses' numbers in this post, if you determine to read it.
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Sadly no pictures in this post. *story mode on*
It's kind of sad to know that I'll be celebrating Lebaran all by myself. Not entirely though, since I've still got my friend Elda who doesn't stop cheering me up with her jokes. Most of my friends here don't celebrate the occasion. Actually, there's one who does, but she's off to San Francisco to attend a small Lebaran celebration with her high school friends or something like that.
So if you don't really know what I'm talking about, then try to imagine if you were abroad and you weren't able to go home and celebrate Christmas with your family, missing the chance to do the yearly Christmas tradition with your family, setting up the Christmas tree, visiting your families, and having guests coming over to munch on your cookies.
However though if that was the matter, then it wouldn't be a problem at all, since people here DO celebrate Christmas and even if you can't go home to your home country, you still have your friends to go to the Church with. And sure, you'll likely to feel the strong Christmas vibe here.
Anyway, just the day before Lebaran, Elda and I took off from our apartment at 12pm to search for a mosque where I'll be most likely doing my Lebaran prayer there. With the help of Google maps installed in my phone, luckily I got to locate the nearby mosques around the area. The closest one is located in Campbell and we only needed just two bus rides to get there.
Thus, our adventure began...
We took off from our apartment (felt like saying this over again), took the 23 bus to Valley Fair mall transit center and got off there to switch to the 60 bus. We waited quite a while there, chatted in our mother language until a lady sitting behind us asked.
"What language are you guys speaking?"
I thought, well, it wasn't a strange question since our language might sound a little different than any other languages an American ever hears. We told her we spoke in Bahasa Indonesia, which could actually be compared to Spanish, since some words might sound similar (even the word GRATIS in Spanish also means FREE in Indonesian. Therefore it's safe to say that GRATIS is the word for free in both Spanish and Indonesian. Wow, just figured it out yesterday)
Back to the topic, the lady also mentioned that she loved our language because it sounded so soothing and that she was fascinated by it. Wow, her words kind of hit me and remind me how Indonesians nowadays prefer to speak in slangs and even some prefer to add some English words to their Indonesian sentences, and even try to speak in an exagerrated American tone (sounds like I'm talking about a popular Indonesian teen star who does stuff like this).
Again, though, the lady's words sort of remind me that Indonesians should be proud of their language. What a valuable lesson learned in the bus stop. Thanks ma'am!
Her bus came and she took off, and not long after that, ours came and we were sure that we got on the right bus (as that's the bus the Google Maps told us to take). After a while though I started to feel that we were heading to the wrong direction: the bus headed north, meanwhile the direction in the Google Maps told us that the bus was supposed to head south instead.
Thus, we got off the bus, went to a nearby bus stop, and headed to the opposite direction.
Things went smoothly since then, and we got off on the right intersection. Next up, the Google maps told us to walk through a residential area, which was a long way to go, until we met an expressway in the other side. Just across the expressway was a small house with quite a huge sign in front of it, written in Arabic words. That was enough to indicate that it was a mosque.
Strangely though, it didn't entirely look like a real mosque, or a mosque like what I've imagined it to look like. The fact that it was small, locked, and that no one seemed to reside that place sort of convinced me that it was closed. There was even a notification written in Arabic writing (once again) that I couldn't read. Somehow my heart at that moment screamed for my Literature and Arabic writing teacher to help me out, which is impossible of course.
(I hate the fact that my Arabic skill is very low).
After knocking the door and no response, I told Elda that there was no hope that someone would open it up. So we took off from there, and got back to the bus stop where we got off earlier. Before that, Elda also did a quick survey on a nearby Catholic church where I discovered that "Gratis" (the Indonesian word for "Free") also means "Free" in Spanish through a brochure. Then, we had a quick lunch of Hot Dog from 7 Eleven.
Our bus came afterwards and Elda said that if there was another mosque we could go to, then we still could make it there since we had plenty of time.
Anyway though, I told Elda that there was another one in Saratoga. My friend who went to San Francisco also told me that the mosque she knew was in Saratoga but she'd never been there. To get there, we needed to go to DeAnza College (our college) then take a 53 bus heading to Saratoga). We thought that to go to DeAnza College from Campbell region, we needed to take a bus back to the mall's transit center, and switch the bus to DeAnza College.
But coincidentally though, on the way back to the transit center using the 60 bus, Elda happened to spot what-supposedly-looked-like-a-piano-school in one side of the road. We got off there and found out that it wasn't a piano school, but only a place that sold pianos. Then, we spotted a 25 bus that headed to the opposite direction (back to where we came from) and written on it was "DeAnza College", meaning the college was its last stop.
So we got on that bus and it was pretty a long way to go, since we didn't take the original route passing the Valley Fair mall transit center, the bus took another route passing the downtown of Campbell. I slept on the bus so I didn't really notice which roads we happened to pass.
Elda woke me up later on and told me we should get off pretty soon since it was approaching the college already. We didn't get off exactly at the college's bus stop, but at a bus stop in front of the campus grounds as the Google map told us to.
I got a bit disoriented since the part of the campus didn't look familiar at all. I recognized a bus stop in front of the campus grounds, but not this one. The road and even the college entrance looked different. Reality hit me, and turned out we got off on the other side of the college entrance. The Google Map said that we got off on the right place though and that we needed to take a 53 bus to get to Saratoga. So no need to doubt anymore.
We went to a nearby bus stop to wait for the bus heading to Saratoga. After a while of waiting (and a moment of listening to instrumental music in the midst of quietness around us using Elda's phone), the bus arrived. But that one wasn't 53 (apparently, the bus stop was meant for three buses: 53, 25, and 55). After a long wait and after many 55 buses and 25 buses passing, finally the expected 53 came. Thus, we got on.
Approaching the intersection where we were supposed to get off, "Our Location" point on Elda's Google map said that we already passed the meant intersection. But I thought her Google map wasn't working because it happened to my Google map as well (sometimes, "Our Location" doesn't locate our exact location on Google map, so that's one minus point of using the application). But then, Elda started to doubt and suggested we should get off since "Our Location" point started to move away from the intersection displayed on the map.
Thus, we got off and headed to the intersection, which was a long way to go. Apparently, we've skipped it pretty far from our bus stop. It was a long walk from the bus stop to get to the mosque. But the Google map said that it was located right on the side of the street, so no need to doubt about its location anymore.
After arriving at the meant place, where "Our Location" point was exactly near the mosque on the Google map, we looked around and saw no signs of mosque at all. I even tried to make sure that the mosque was on the right side of the street as said by the application, but the meant place turned out to be only rows of closed shops. We walked around but the mosque point on the Google map still pointed at the same place.
So I came up with a conclusion that perhaps, the mosque itself wasn't exactly a mosque as in a vivid building. The name of the mosque as implied by the application itself said that it wasn't exactly a mosque, but an association. Probably it was an organization that frequently moved its meeting from one place to another. Strange.
From there, we decided to end our search and went to our original schedule of the day: Going to Lion Food Center to do a weekly shopping. The meant Lion Food Center was located at Kiely Boulevard, that's near Stevens Creek Boulevard, close to our apartment (our apartment was at Stevens Creek Boulevard).
So it means, we're heading back home.
My phone's battery was almost empty so I was sure there was no way I could access my Google map and decided to count on Elda's from then on.
She said. "We should catch a 26 bus to get to Lion Food Center. Only one bus ride. But to get to the 26 bus stop, we must walk quite far from this place."
I thought maybe we could wait for the 53 bus heading to the other direction until we got to the 26 bus stop. But Elda said it would waste a heap of time waiting for such a rare bus to come. So it'd be better if we walked. So, we decided to just walk on foot to get to the not-so-near 26 bus stop, even passing non-pedestrian sidewalk (where - literally - there's no sidewalk) and a bridge over a highway, we made it to the 26 bus stop. FINALLY.
The sun was setting so we started to fear about the place around us, because just behind the bus stop bench were likely bushes. The place wasn't so familiar either so it was better if we increased our awareness towards our surroundings, especially if it was already dark. Thankfully, the 26 bus was seen turning towards us at the intersection and we felt safe. Just before the sun set.
It was probably the longest bus ride of the day and my feet already ached like heck. It came to my realization that we were passing some places that looked very much different. Even stretching before us as the bus was passing, were rolling hills that reflected the sun, making them to look reddish and yet they looked just breathtaking, but still I felt kind of strange of this place.
I was like "Wait a minute, we're heading to Lion Food Center in Cupertino right? The one at Kiely Boulevard? Near Stevens Creek? So we're going on the way home right? How come I've never seen these hills on the way home?"
Elda convinced that yes, we were going back to Cupertino, it's just we were passing some foreign places we'd never been to (I was convinced we might take another route), so that's why our surroundings looked extremely different.
We got off at Tully and King intersection (an intersection I've never heard before yet sounded so unfamiliar), and the Food Center was located exactly at one side of the intersection. The sun almost set and the wind started to blow even harder than before since it was almost evening.
Then Elda doubtly uttered. "Why does THIS Lion Food center look different?"
I've been to Lion Food Center at Kiely Boulevard (the one we meant to go to) and it had a Burger king resto at its parking lot, but this Lion Food Center we happened to stumble upon, didn't have any Burger King restos.
I thought that maybe we came from the opposite direction which we had never been to, so maybe the entrance looked a little different than the entrance we happened to know.
Elda's doubt rose since then and she profusely checked her Google map, only to find out that WE WERE NOT IN THE MEANT SUPERMARKET IN CUPERTINO.
However though, Elda still couldn't discover where we were, if we turned out to be not in Cupertino. Or maybe, we were too afraid to find out exactly where we were (maybe we already passed beyond San Jose region. Geez)
"We've gone all the way to this place, so let's just go shopping in this food center." I suggested.
So we got inside before we got frostbitten for standing outside for so long. We shopped there for quite a while and got everything we wanted. It's pretty worth it!
The sky was already dark as we got outside and Elda's phone's battery was on the verge of getting drained (don't ask about mine. it's dead already). But Elda quickly found which bus to take to get back home. She said we should take a 22 bus to Alum Rock Transit Center to switch to the 23 bus heading to DeAnza College (the first bus we rode today to Valley Fair transit center).
We caught the bus after running towards it right after we got out of the supermarket. Good thing we didn't need to wait for the bus to come this time.
It came to my mind that Alum Rock Transit Center was actually the first stop to get to DeAnza college. We've got on the bus heading to Alum Rock Transit Center before, but the furthest we could go to that time was to Downtown San Jose and it was ALREADY FAR from our apartment.
I wondered if Alum Rock WAS even further than downtown San Jose, since it was the first stop.
Anyway, we reached the intersection of Alum Rock and King, somewhere between San Jose and Santa Clara and waited for the 23 bus heading to DeAnza college in the same bus stop. The bus stop didn't look so convincing at all, since it was dark and the bus stop itself had no lighting at all. I've heard of crime stories spread all over the states and started to rise my awareness towards my surroundings, and hoped that the bus would soon come.
The 23 bus was later seen to be turning to our direction at the intersection, and at once, we felt very safe. We got on and exhaled deeply for this was our last bus of the day. Ever. The distance between Alum Rock and the so-called downtown where we got off the other day was quite far.
So it was obvious that we'd gone all the way to the last stop and had to make it back to our apartment. That was going to be another long way to go back home.
We even passed Santa Clara and the downtown of San Jose and it did look beautiful in the night, with lights and all of the city-ish atmosphere unlike in Cupertino. We only got the glimpse of the downtown in the midday and it was quiet.
Approximately at 9.30 pm, we made it back to the apartment safely. This is probably the latest we ever got home at night, and we realized it all happened extremely unexpectedly. It started with a search of a mosque but ended up an adventure around Campbell, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, San Jose, Santa Clara, and back to Cupertino again.
Wow, explored more than five cities in a day in 9 hours nonstop.
I might as well make a book about this, but I think a post this long is enough. Phiew. Took quite a long time. My fingers need some rest too.
Picture credit to: ~TeenagePolitics
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